With finals looming on the horizon, deadlines for summer internships fast approaching, and graduation regalia not far from the closets of Regent Law 3Ls, it is easy to understand why the stress and tension around Robertson Hall is at an almost tangible level.

Meanwhile, as many across the country are waiting for their April showers to bring May flowers, Virginia Beach is in full bloom – and it is only mid-March. The beautiful pink blossoms illuminating an early spring shower remind our students and faculty that this season of stress and uncertainty is only that - a season.

I think the lesson learned from such settings is depicted by Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins better than any attempt of mine:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generation have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! Bright wings.